..:S...P...I...D...E...R...B...I...T...E...S:..

Saturday, October 20, 2007

“One problem about relating things in the first person...
The reader knows the narrator doesn't get killed."
- Robert McCammon - “Boy's Life”


FICTION:



spiderbites...a 79% true story



chapter IV: ...and trails





You know, I could keep this car awhile. I have another license plate. At least I think I do, maybe buried in a box in my trunk. I’ll have to check. Of course, if it was in my trunk, that means it’s still parked back there at the grocery store. I could always make another one though, depending on the breakfast cereal situation at my apartment.

The box in my trunk was full of stuff that I was going to burn at a campfire a few months back. However, when it came time to chuck the junk in, I just stood there as the fire died and my friends complained that if anything was meant to save their campfire, it was the pile of greasy stuffed animals and shoes and sporting goods that I’d rescued from the roadside. I just stood there, arms crossed, and came up with a long, complicated reason not to burn every single one of them. Except for the basketball. And I ended up paying for that decision when it exploded and knocked me on my ass, showering my legs with sizzling rubber.

A sign on the road says, “Maintain Speed.” How did they know that when they hammered that in the ground?

I check the gas gauge. The needle is wobbling over a quarter tank. I’ve run out of gas in every car I’ve ever owned. Sometimes on purpose. I’m a big fan of the scenes in the movies where the guys are over the ocean in a plane or a helicopter and someone says, “We’ve reached the point of no return. If we turn back now, we might have enough gas to make it back.” In the movies, they never go back, and neither do I. Of course, they’re on a more noble mission that seeing where a road ends on their lunch hour.

I finally pick up Jay at the tattoo shop. I’m barely in the lot for a 10 seconds and he comes blowing out the door disgusted by something. He looks around, mistakes the stolen car as mine right on cue and throws himself into the passenger seat, mouth already moving.

-Dude, someone was making a fetus angel in there.

-Huh?

I immediately think of someone lying on their back in a pile of embryos, spreading their arms and legs to scrape and outline of an snow angel.

-You know? A tattoo of a baby with wings? Chicks get those after they feel guilty about an abortion.

-Oh. I thought you meant that someone was lying in a...

-What the fuck did you think I meant? Dude, I hate, hate that shit.

-Well, let’s see it.

He pulls up the side of his shirt to reveal large Old English letters spelling
“L-O-C-A.”

-What the hell is that? “Loca?” Are you ‘bout to get crazy, ese?

-Naw, man...

He pulls his jeans down a little to reveal the “L.”

-It says “Local.”

-Why?

-Because I’m sick of tourists thinking I’m one of them.

-Who the fuck vacations in Ohio?

-People that ain’t from Ohio?

I shake my head at that and sit forward to look at the shop.

-Jay, you know they used to call these places “parlors?” They used to sip tea and get their nails done at the same time.

He ignores me.

-Every time I go down to the pool, there’s always these kids fucking around, crowding the deep end. I figure this will establish my rights as a local to that pool. I got the idea watching this surfing movie.

-Is it really so dangerous at the neighborhood pool these days?

-Fuck yeah. There’s kids coming from all over to use that pool. I’ve been swimming there since grade school. I think people should know this.

I don’t know what to say.

-I don’t know what to say.

I think of something to say.

-Hey, remember that kid in school who had the “poet” tattoo on his wrist? How much you used to make fun of him for that?

-No. I told him that I had the word “poet” on my cock. But sometimes it actually says, “I firmly believe that poetry might be overrated as a form of expression.”

-I think it said “poem,” not “poet,” now that I think about it. That’s not as bad actually.

-Let’s go. I don’t want to wait until the angel tribute comes walking out.

I pull out into traffic. His mouth doesn’t catch a breath.

-You see that commercial? Where they say “Finally, something that tells you the instant you’re pregnant?” What’s that mean? Does your shit turn blue? Hey! That reminds me! Remember when I told you I stopped jerking off so I’d start liking that girl? Doesn’t work. You’re sorry? Shit, I’m scared to have anyone come over to my apartment. They’d get knocked-up using a fork.

Orange construction barrels start to stack up along the horizon and corral me into the left lane. Too much roadwork in this town. So tired of the eternal construction. It might be up to Number 693 on the list of “Things I’m Sick of Around Here.”

-Jay, see that marker? I didn’t think it was possible, but you are actually talking a mile a minute. Do you actually burn bridges, too?

-What? Are you talking about that?

I looked over and see a sign warning me to “Slow Down.” How did they know?
Jay looks around his feet, flips around the sun visor, glances into the back seat.

-Hey, you finally clean this car?

I turn to look in the back seat, too, and instead see a 4x4 lunging and weaving behind me, red lights flashing over a barely transparent American-flag decal that covers his windshield. Jay sees it, too.

-You gonna let him pass or what?

-Nope. I don’t see any blue lights, do you? Fuck him.

We pass a sign that says, “$5,000 For Killing A Worker.” Is that a bounty? Sounds like they’re asking you to do it. The other sign made more sense. 15 years sounds more like a punishment. The trunk honks and tears up weeds and dust trying to get around me.

-You see that sign? Killing someone’s still illegal, right?

* * *

I need a nemesis. That’s what’s missing in this town. The last time I was really happy, I’m pretty sure I was also really angry. And I had a target to focus on, some grudge, some campaign of revenge. Can’t remember though. That’s what I need. One night I finally cracked open about 20 fortune cookies that had been stockpiling in the drawer next to the take-out menu, and it was too dark and I was too hungry to read them. Oh, in case anyone makes this same mistake, here’s some advice. You’d think a pile of fortune cookies would be a good substitute for cereal when the box is down to the dust, but it’s not. It looks sort of the same, except maybe for the little tongues of white paper peeking out of the slits and wiggling in the milk, but it doesn’t really work. I guess I could have cracked them in half and took out the fortunes, but the seafood memory was just a little too close for comfort.

The next morning, I brushed the little slips of paper off the counter like leaves off a windshield, but some still pop up around here. They’re usually full of clichés like, “no man will work for your interests unless they’re his,” “no person who can’t laugh at himself will be happy,” “help, I’m trapped in a fortune cookie factory,” “no good writing without reading,” and “no happiness without hate,” and “no good movie without a villain,” Clearly, cookies are big on starting their wisdom with the word “no.”

Maybe while I’m looking for all my old cars, I could find one of those villains, too. But it’s so hard to get angry these days. The last time I really got angry was while watching my favorite show “Crab Masters” and one of the crew was frustrated that there weren’t any crabs big enough to keep, so he whipped a small ocean critter at the deck, killing it instantly. For some reason, when they played hockey with the crabs that lost their legs, or bit the heads off fish for good luck, it didn’t bother me at all. But this tantrum did. I felt like I could have actually killed that man. So how do I find his equivalent out in the wild, off the TV screen? I think the key is, you’ve got be ready and recognize them when they come.

Like the last time I had a volunteer fireman riding my ass. See how that sounds out loud? Stick with me for this story. I come out looking like a pussy at the end of it.

Years ago, before I had my own car, I was driving my dad’s van down a one-lane country road in my hometown, and this giant pick-up with what I thought were yellow tow-truck lights on its roof was tailgating me. Same situation, different truck, same song, different verse. So I slowed down and stared at him in my mirrors, and he turned on those yellow lights, started the “let me pass” lunge. I thought to myself, "Fuck you, dude. There's no fire. I ain't moving. Quit pretending you're a cop." And when there was finally enough room for his big, shiny truck to squeeze past the van, he blew on by glaring at me, then gunned it and tore off into the distance. I brooded about the encounter for a couple more miles and decided to try to catch up to him just to prove once and for all that there was no fire. It was easy to find him. There was a huge cooler full of some sports drink in the back of his truck, and it leaked a steady stream of green all the way to the fire hall.

Time out. Do you see the implications here? If someone said those famous words, "Where's the fire?!" at that moment, this particular fireman would have to sheepishly admit, "Uh, there ain't no fire." Get it? It had to be done.

I caught up with him at the end of the florescent green trail. The truck was parked at the fire station and my heart jumped as I hoped there really wasn’t some kind of off-roading emergency that demanded this asshole’s 4x4. I creeped the van around the building (as much as a van can creep) and watched him casually turn off his yellow lights, get out of his truck, and walk toward the building with that sense of urgency completely gone. Then he started talking with some other asshole in the parking lot, both smiling and drinking coffee out of thermos lids, not a care in the world.

I exclaimed, "Ah ha!" and came around the corner fast. They stepped back as I rolled down the window, vindicated smirk on my face. I wish I would have yelled triumphantly, "Where's the fire?!" but I just didn't think to say it back then. Instead I stuttered, "Uh, remember me from back there?" The guy squinted and said, "Yeah, what do you want?" And I was like, "Um, I thought you were in a hurry, man." And the fireman looked at me a minute, then at his buddy, then said, "Why don't you get out and say that shit?"

I thought about it for a second, said, “No, thanks” and drove off like my ass was on fire.

Morals to that story? I still leave on the ‘80s epic "Backflash" every time it comes on TV (a movie possibly named after the reaction of fire to the melodramatic bullshit of firefighters) because the endless funeral parade at the end is the funniest climax since the “custard” pie fight at the end of my favorite porn, “Dr. Strangegloves.” And I realized that there’s really no fires anywhere, unless you light one. Oh, yeah. I also learned that if I want to find some anger, or a new girl, new car, or new villain, the road is where they’re always waiting.

* * *

Me and Jay follow an ancient black and green trail of antifreeze and motor oil to another fire hall. The fire engines are pulling out, sirens wailing. There is a fire somewhere this time. I try to tell Jay about the other guy I followed.

-Remember that other time? Remember...

-Yeah, dude. “Where’s the fire.” I get it.

-No, I was just saying that...

-I get it. “Where’s the fire.” You should have said that. It would have be great. He would have never done that again. We could have told your grandkids about it. Yeah, I get it.
Jay points to the parking lot behind the station and elbows me in the chest.

-Hey, didn’t you used to have a truck like that?

Yes. I did. I’d like to tell him that this is his finest moment.

-Yes, I did.

Even though a thumb is only about 1/100th of your body weight, according to the Department of Workers Compensation a missing digit can reduce your overall work efficiency by 9%. A missing thumb, however, brings your effectiveness down to 73%, which makes it more serious than the loss of an ear or, believe it or not, an eye. It is that important when you’re working.

Jay turns down the radio and elbows me.

-I thought you said you were moving.

A road sign outside my window says “Expect Delays.”

-Eventually.

-You taking me home someday or what?

-You got time while I wash this car?

-Since when do you wash you car?

-Yeah, all right. I’d like to hose off this tattoo, cool it down.

-You supposed to do that?

-Why not?

We circle the strip mall near his neighborhood and pull up to the car wash we remembered there. Closed. We go to another one. Closed. I try one more, telling Jay to look for loose change under the seat to keep him from complaining. He finds about two bucks worth and starts working on untangling a half-eaten cherry sucker from the carpet fuzz. His eyes light up.

-Hey, remember that story you told me about your mom making you get all the gum out of the back of her car, and how you managed to hurt yourself when...

-Leave the sucker. I’ve yet to see a car wash that takes candy for currency.

I look over at his face. The fucker’s creeping up on 30 years old, and I think he’s actually pouting.

The next car wash is open. I can see a tiny red light flashing on the change machine like a cigarette ember. But before I can pull the car into the stall and untangle the hose, Jay is feeding all the change he found into the machine and stripping off his shirt. He grabs the nozzle and locks the trigger, then tosses it up over and beam to shower down on his head. He rotates his body under the spray, gingerly tapping the angry skin rising around the letters on his ribs.

-Fucking hell that feels fucking good.

-Dude, I only get ten minutes for all those quarters.

-Hold on, hold on. I want to show you something. Tell me what move this is...

Jay puts one hand on the wall of the stall and hangs his head with his eyes down.

-What are you doing?

-I’m a cop! Get it? Every movie you ever see, the cop stands there with one hand against the wall, thinking about everything he did that day, or how corrupt his department is or why he couldn’t save that dog from the...

-I’ve never seen that in a movie in my life.

-Okay, what movie is this?

Jay backs up from the wall and stares down at both his hands, slowly rubbing them together in circles. Then he looks up at me like a cat who thinks the rat he brought you is a gift.

-I don’t know, man. A movie about break-dancing.

-No! I’m some kind of killer. I’m looking down at my hands, slowly washing off the blood, but, like, it won’t come off, dude! I’m pondering the monster I’ve become.

-I looks more like you were doing that diabolical hand-wringing, like you were gonna hatch a plot and tie someone to the railroad tracks.

-Was not.

-Okay, we’ve only got seven minutes of water left...

-What’s movie is this?

He puts his shirt back on, standing with his hands at his sides, not waiting for me to guess.

-I’m the dude in the movie who just got dumped. Usually he’s standing in the rain, but something you’ll get one that stands in the shower, fully dressed, you know?

-I’m not gonna even be able to get my car wet, asshole.

-Wait! What movie is this?

Shirt off again, he puts both hands up against the wall, head down.

-Prison movie. You’re taking it up the ass.

This confuses Jay, and he stares at me a second.

-Maybe. But I was trying to do the quarterback shower, after his loses the big game. Or maybe the firefighter shower. You know, after he couldn’t rescue the cat and had to stand and watch it run around on fire.

-That has never been in a movie.

-Okay, it’s a firefighter taking it up the ass.

-Now, you’re making sense. Okay, get out of the way so I can at least hose off...

-Last one! Last one! I promise.

He runs past me, opens the passenger door and leans inside. Then he runs back, putting his wet shirt back on. He gets back under the spray and sits cross-legged next to the drain, staring into space like a cat taking dump.

-I give up. And when I say that, I mean it in several...

-Shhh! Give it a second. Watch.

I blink as a red stream starts to trickle from between his legs and snake toward the drain. He’s giggling, but still straining to keep the blank look on his face he started with.

-What the fuck are you doing?

I step closer and see the white stick of the sucker peeking out of the cuff of his shorts.

-I’m a rape victim. Get it?

He says this without breaking character, and I walk over to the buttons on the wall where the timer is down to one minute. I hit the button marked “Hot Wax.” and smile as the water above his head turns to milk. He screams and cracks a knee on the wall trying to get out.

Jay sits in passenger seat wringing his shirt in his hands, hissing in pain when he bumps his new tattoo. I nod toward his hands.

-Let me guess. It’s the movie where the villain finally trips and falls
victim to the diabolical machinery at his shark factory.

-Fuck you. If you fucked up this tattoo, you’re paying for it.

We drive on in silence for a while, then he has to laugh.

-Shark factory?

-Could happen.

-Take me home.

-I’ve still got to wash this car. And you need to find a rinse cycle.

-There’s no more money left under the seats.

-Bear with me. I know of a car wash that’s free. In every other stall, the water is always on. Only the locals know about it.

-Seriously?

He’s peeking under his shirt to took at his tattoo. The skin is purple and furious, rising like bread dough. I reach towards him and he flinches.

-Trust me. Free car washes are something only the locals know about.

On the edge of town, there’s an old water fountain in a field. It has long since dried up. Grass grows all around it and whatever walls that used to surround it are long gone. It was the only thing left after some kind of renovation or demolition. Whenever I see that fountain, I know that the free car wash is nearby. It’s about two blocks from a baseball diamond, and sometimes, if you wait long enough, you’ll see a sweaty child run up to it and then shuffle away in disappointment. I pull over. Jay gets excited and stops blowing on his ribs.

-Does that thing work?

I get out and walk towards it.

-Nope

Thunder starts rumbling and Jay looks around nervously.

-Dude, this is dangerous. I was landscaping in a field like this when I got hit by lighting.

One thing that drive me bonkers is the way Jay always steals my stories. It would be bad enough if he just took some incident that happened to me and passed it off as his own, and I could actually get mad and call him out on it. But it’s even more tragic than that. He’ll actually tell me about something that happened to me and get frustrated when I sigh or tune him out. This is what he’s doing right now.

-Did I ever tell you about that?

I sigh. I told him about it about three years ago, right after it happened to me.

-No? Well, we were edging this woman’s garden, and I had one of those handheld sod cutters, gouging out a trench for some mulch or something, and the sky was black before we knew it. I switched to an old shovel, all metal, trying to clean up before the clumps were all mud. One bolt hit real close and the other five guys started packing up the shit...

Other two guys.

-...and that’s when it hit me. The crew chief said that he saw it come down right over my head. No rumbles, no bang, more like a crisp slap across my face.

True.

-In fact, I’m not sure whether it hit me or just went through my shovel and into the ground...

True.

-...but the other guys hit the deck and were already running for the truck. When I shook off the shock of what happened, I saw I was fine. I ran over to the truck and they locked the door and wouldn’t let me in...

True.

-...and they called me “Thor” for the rest of the summer.

False.

The best is when he mistakes my frustration at hearing my own story for something even more ridiculous.

-What? You don’t believe me? Why are you such a cynical fuck?

We stand and watch a boy walk up to the fountain, forehead shiny with sweat, ring around his hair from a cap, cleats clicking through the stones.

-You’d think they’d figure it out by now.

-He’s from the visiting team. See his jersey? Bam. Out of town.

We stand and watch the boy together. We know he sees us watching because he pretends like the water fountain works. He wipes his dry mouth and hurries back toward the game. Jay looks likes he gonna make fun of him and says nothing instead. We get back in the car. Five years from now, he’ll tell me on the phone all over again about getting hit by lightning. When I interrupt him early in the story and finally explain to him that this actually happened to me, he’ll quickly deny what he just said and claim that he meant he was “stuck by lighting” and got a face full of glass and dust when some florescent tubes exploded while he was replacing them at the gas station where he works.

* * *

Jay, do you know why I keep you around? Because I know why you keep me around. Remember how I said I knew him back when we had bicycles? Well, once we went to one of those secret places that everyone knew about, those spots under railroad tracks or behind old schools or burned-out corn silos where the secret rotated to a new crop of kids every few years until they stopped riding bikes around town. This secret was an unused section of sewer near the church. With a couple pairs of hands, we could work off the manhole cover and climb down inside. There’s was nothing in there, just a ladder that led to a space about ten feet by ten feet. We’d pulled the lid off twice since we found it, but were still working on getting up the guts to climb down. And Jay was showing off and trying to prove he could lift the cover up all by himself. He was straining so hard I thought his eyes were gonna start bleeding, and I could tell he was a couple seconds from dropping it. So I dropped my bike (something I never did) and ran in to help with my bad hand. We had it up several inches, just enough for the afternoon sunlight to light up the bottom of the ladder. We strained and got it up higher, and the light reflected off some pop cans, a cracked bowling ball and...was that a dead dog? I was starting to say that it couldn’t be real, that the skeleton was pink. And Jay was saying that there was no such thing as a toy dead dog, and right then it got too heavy and came down with a crash. My good hand got out of the way, and my bad hand, of course, didn’t have a thumb to get caught. So the edge of the manhole cover rebounded off both Jay’s thumbs, and he rolled back and curled up like a potato bug with a scream boiling in his mouth. When I got him to finally unclench his fists to see how bad he was hurt, I saw deep gashes in both thumbs, but they were still there. He kept trying not to cry as he attempted to ride his bike home with his elbows. He was unsuccessful with both these things. Watching him without thumbs that day made me think that you would be pretty much useless without them. Losing one of your thumbs might even be more important than losing one of your eyes. When my uncle (cousin?) put out an eye and signed up for Workers Compensation, he found out that the percentage of his pay was a third less than if he would have lost a thumb. The fact that I’ve never harassed Jay about whimpering and trying to ride his bike with his elbows doesn’t matter. It’s forever unspoken, his shame connecting him to me without him even remembering why. In fact, I’ll bet money that he thinks that’s the one story that actually happened to me.

I keep Jay around because I’m jealous that he never dwells on shit like I do. And because he represents every friend I’ve ever had. He has no choice. We were the only ones who never moved away.

* * *

-Remember that truck at the fire hall? You think that might be my first car? I mean truck?

-No, it’s not.

-How do you know?

-Because I know where it is.

-What?

-Yeah. That first truck you bought? I see it all the time. On the corner, over by what’s his face. You know, where that shit burned down? Remember? Take a right, then a left, turn where they were selling that snowmobile two winters back, then turn where I saw that owl grab that cat and drop it on the house. Did I ever tell you about that? Freaky shit. Cat was fine.

-Wow. Those are great directions. You should be an air traffic controller. There’d be thousands dead.

-Whatever, dude.

-Do you really know where my truck is?

-Yes.

-No shit.

I do an illegal U-turn and jump a curb. I remembered the snowmobile. I wanted to buy it.

-Jay, you remember the sandwich? In the movie theater?

-No.

-Well, don’t worry about it. That was you finest moment, but not anymore. This is.

-Fuck you talking about? Never mind. Turn here...

On the way there, Jay laughs and tells me that I look like a praying mantis when I get excited and drive fast.

-Look at you. You look just like one. You’re leaning forward with that stupid look on your face, your hands at the top of the steering wheel bent down all queer like you got two broken wrists, your skinny little forearms laying on the wheel, in danger of honking the horn at every fucking stop sign. If there was a gay praying mantis that could drive a car, it would be you.

He can’t figure out whey I’m smiling.,

-Okay, Jay, forget the other stuff. That was your finest moment.

Fifteen minutes later and I’m peering through some pine trees at my truck. It’s blue. And it’s got scars, too. Jays whispers in my ear.

-You should steal it, dude. Didn’t you make fake license plates out of cereal boxes once?

One of the headlights will always be higher than the other after I rammed those goalposts while tearing up the football field. The grill is still cracked into a frown from when I tried pushing a friend’s car so he could jumpstart it. The hood won’t lock all the way down after I drove with it up to scare someone. There’s only three lugnuts on the front right wheel from when I stripped the other two wrestling them off in the rain. There’s a circle of rust where I left the funeral procession magnet on my roof for months because I thought it was funny. There’s a thin outline of green paint remaining in all the seams of the left side after I bumped a ladder and upended a bucket on a worksite. The windshield has a tiny spiderweb forming in the upper left corner from a mystery projectile. The wipers don’t nest as low as they should when they’re off. There’s a long, curving scratch along the driver’s side window from where I started to write someone’s name with a rock until cooler heads prevailed and tackled me. A baseball-sized dent on the door from a baseball. The antenna is still sagging from the heavy pizza delivery banner I was forced to attach to it. The back window is covered with the residue of about twenty stickers that only seemed funny the first time you read them. A basketball-sized dent from a basketball. Red paint peeks through around the mirror on the passenger’s side, not because it’s bleeding but because that’s the color it used to be. A golf ball-sized dent from a football. No marks at all above the wheel well where I got mad and punched it. The bed is stained with hundreds of spilled pop cans and scratched from the trees I hauled while landscaping. The back gate is down because it both saves on gas mileage and it won’t latch. And there’s a thousand scratches around the lock from my key as I never had a vehicle before and wasn’t very careful about unlocking it. When the moonlight hit that lock just right, you’d swear someone was clawing to get in.

I take my keys out of my ignition and turn them over and over in my hand. Jay snatches them away from me and starts my car up again.

* * *

It was moving slow in the tree. She told me that it was too cold out and it would be dead soon. I didn’t believe her. I thought I could keep it.

I’d recently bought my first car, a baby-blue pick-up truck, the only thing on the lot that I could afford, and I took me a week to notice it had this big empty space where a glove box used to be. At first I was putting lunch and cassette tapes in that hole, but everything would come flying out every time I hit the gas. Later I found a chunk of chain-link fence at the playground that I broke off by bending it back and forth every time I walked by. And using my dad’s staple gun, I covered up the hole and left one corner of the fence loose. I could bend it up and throw stuff into the hole where it would safely bounce around when I lurched through all the red lights on the way to see her. And I lurched bad. This first truck of mine was a stick-shift, and that’s no where to start. I remember someone laughing and saying I should keep a hamster in there.

Outside her house, she was standing and staring at it with me. She’d finally come out to see why I never came to her window. I said that if she was right, if it was too cold for it to survive outside, maybe it would be better off inside my truck. I held out my hand and it climbed aboard like a parrot in a pirate movie. Horrified, she went back inside. I didn’t even notice. I climbed inside my truck and bent back the corner of that hole. I pulled out all the taco wrappers and bubblegum machine toys and empty cassette cases and gently set the praying mantis inside. She hissed at me from her window, angrily whispering that they had a cycle and that it would be dead no matter what I did. Then she surprised me. She sneaked back outside and pulled up a handfuls of grass up from her lawn, the roots popping like a zippers under the covers. Then she put the grass in the hole, too. I left the dome light on in the truck with the window cracked open and snuck into her room to spend the night. The next morning I creeped out before dawn to see if any moths or mosquitoes had gotten stuck inside. I figured I could feed the mantis whatever insects I’d find inside. I figured this arrangement could last forever. Bugs filling my car while I fucked my girlfriend, the praying mantis munching on them while I drove home cranking triumphant classic rock music.

The mantis was dead in the corner of the hole. Bullshit, I thought. It should have worked. It’s wasn’t like collecting clams or car keys. It was just one thing, easy to keep track of, easy to feed. It would have worked. I looked up to her window just in time to see her shadow move away from the window. I was angry at her for no reason at all. I thought back to a time when she hit a creature crossing the road, and when I made her stop so I could go back and look, she asked what it was. I told her I could see nothing but feet and entrails. Back in the car, she said, “Oh, I thought you said feet ‘and trails.’ And I was trying to figure out what the hell you were talking about.” She laughed like she’d said the funniest goddamn thing in the world and no amount of slow blinking would make her drop it. So fuck her. It would have been nice and dramatic way to squeal some tires and throw stones at her house to wake up her family. Except my battery was dead from leaving that light on. I sighed and got out of my truck and walked back up the sidewalk to knock on her door and pretend I just got there.

Since the truck was a stick-shift, I wanted her to learn how to drive it in case of an underage drinking emergency. And I tried to teach her every time we had a big enough parking lot, but she never could figure it out. I was lucky enough to practice driving a manual transmission on a vehicle that didn’t matter.

I was at my first job washing dishes to save money to get my first car. I was 15 and figured I could make enough money over the summer to either buy one myself or prove to my dad that I deserved for him to cover the difference. There was a stick-shift truck, a tiny yellow, food and rust covered beater, at this restaurant that they used for hauling huge buckets of hot grease from the kitchen to a dumpster at the end of the parking lot. While I was helping haul the grease, before I knew it I had lied twice and said, “Yeah, I got a license,” and “Yeah, I can drive stick.” This was partly because I didn’t want to fuck with giant buckets of grease all day , but mostly because I wanted a chance to drive that little yellow beast around the parking lot. As soon as I got in and tried to back up, I stalled it out. Then I hit too much gas and cracked the back gate into a concrete post near the kitchen door. I was leaning out the window when it happened and my head comically bonked the half-open window, sunglasses flying off my face and onto the ground. So that the other guy in the truck next to me wouldn’t notice my sudden lack of sunglasses or be tempted to step out and check the damage, I put it in first gear and gunned it forward. I weaved in and out of the yellow lines in the empty lot to practice for my upcoming driving test, and after a couple orbits like a dog circling before it shits, I finally pulled in behind the dumpster. Shaking his head, the other dishwasher got out, and I followed him.

That’s when we saw that the grease bucket had sloshed after my first stall, grease filling the truck bed until I lurched forward. after which it had poured out the back gate to leave a shiny trail of evidence for every idiotic swerve I had made through that parking lot. Mouths open, we walked around, our heads bobbing and turning as we traced the grease trail from my broken sunglasses, though a series of figure-eights around the empty spaces, weaving around and around and around and then finally pooling behind the dumpster. My copilot said, “I wasn’t gonna say nothing about you hitting that pole, but everyone’s gonna see this for weeks.” Weeks? I thought. No way it would be weeks, right?

Turned out he was wrong. My trail was there for months. That’s how I first learned that grease simply refuses to dry up. And when someone put down a layer of sawdust to soak it up, that dust mixed with grease, some rain and humidity made for an irresistible insect buffet. Flies covered that trail by the thousands, laying their eggs and turning this map of my fuckup into, no bullshit, a squirming white river of maggots that probably looked like giant crime scene outline from the sky. Up close, it wasn’t just maggots. There were ants, bees, spiders, and if the blacktop wasn’t too hot to get even closer, you could see tiny little snails no bigger than grains of salt. Surprisingly, I didn’t get fired for creating this new ecosystem because I washed and dried dishes like the fucking wind, and because I volunteered to shovel up maggots all by myself on my days off. Sundays, I would stare at my trail and think about how it looked as if I was moving slow and confused when I was weaving that truck around the parking lot. It made me angry. And sometimes, if I stared at the trail long enough, all the squirming made it look like it was trying to twist itself into words.

They actually did let me drive that truck again, mostly because I shoved the rest of the maggots in record time after I thought the trail was talking to me. And now that I think about it, that was how and where I learned how to drive. In the yellow one, not the blue one. That was my first.

* * *

I’m parked outside the house, spying on my blue truck and thinking about the yellow one instead. I’m hiding behind some pine trees like I did when I’d sneak into her house during the day. It’s midnight, and Jay’s back home with ice on his side, watching Spanish music videos to see if anyone else might have a “Loca” tattoo. When the last of the lights click off inside the house, I creep over to the driveway to touch it.

There’s new scars on it, things I never did. The mirror on the passenger side is angling straight down, making it impossible to see anything but the road. Did someone do that on purpose? I try to angle the mirror back up, and it slumps back down again, the mechanism inside loose and broken. It reminds me of an eye rolling back in its socket when you peek inside someone’s head when they’re sleeping. I walk around to the back and see a brown edge of rust eating into the flanks. I touch my truck above a wheel and the rust crumbles like burnt toast. I’m alarmed by this, as if I kicked a tire and watched it cover my foot like taffy. I kick a tire to shake the image. Then I’m fighting the urge rub off the rest of the rust, so I keep moving. I walk around to the front and see the rubber missing on one of the wiper blades. Then I see the long curving scratch the metal makes in the windshield every time it’s turned on. I flinch, imagining the sound that would make and wonder who the fuck doesn’t get something like that fixed before the scratch gets deep enough to break through.

I pull a key from the pile in my pocket and try the lock. It works, of course, and I slide inside. I see that the hole where the glovebox should be has long been fixed. I knew it would be. I reach under the seat and feel some gum in the carpet, probably from someone spitting out a half-open window. Or sometimes the wind brings it back inside without you even knowing. You see that happening a lot in the movies with cigarettes, but never with gum. If gum started a fire, people would take it more seriously. I wonder how much spit never makes it outside either. If spit started a fire, we probably wouldn’t risk doing it so much, and we wouldn’t be unknowingly driving around with a our feet resting in a dried swamp of saliva.

I decide to it open, in case something in there needs to breath. I roll down the windows and crack open the door so that the dome light stays on. There’s already a dozen mosquitoes rebounding in there when I leave.

On the way home, I think back to my failed campaign to teach her how to drive stick. I’d be yelling nonsense at her like, “What if there’s an emergency? It’s unacceptable that I couldn’t just give you my keys. That’s like saying you can’t use my shoes, even if...” “Even if what?” she’d ask. “Never mind.” I’d mumble. And every time I tired to teach her in the church parking lot, near the sewer that bit Jay actually, I imagined a trail of grease and maggots showing rising behind us, showing everyone every lurch and stall she was doing. I got angry too fast because of this hallucination, and she never learned.

The next day, I pick up Jay to go find that free car wash. Because it’s less important, it’s now the only thing we want to do.

We find the change machine instead. The car wash is gone, but the machine still stands in the field, tiny red light blinking, no power source in sight. Jay laughs.

-Change machine, huh? Is there a “love removal machine” nearby.

-Shhh. Don’t scare it.

-Dude, how do weeds grow this fast? You could have a Bigfoot sighting out here. Hey! Remember, you snapped a picture of a Sasquatch once! Wait, no, that was the Yeti. Or the Goat Sucker. No, I remember now. It was The Loch Ness Monster! Remember that shit?

-I remember.

-Remember that shit? Peeking its head out of the water? You snapped that picture and...

-Shut the fuck up. Yeah, “remember that shit.” I get it.

I want back to the car and scratch around under the seat until I come up with a quarter.

-Oh, I’m sorry. You’re here for some “change.” Get it? Get it? I get it.

I put the quarter in the slot. Nothing happens. Jay kicks the side of it and I feel it in my stomach.

-Who’s filling it up with quarters? That’s what I wanted to know until I just saw you stick one it like a dumbass. I can understand if maybe they’re gonna build another car wash around it. But why stick change in instead of out? There’s not slot for a dollar bill. It only takes change...to make change? Makes no fuckin’ sense. Why haven’t some kids come by to raid this thing? Or destroy it for not giving up the scratch?

-Last time I was here, Jay, I waited an hour to get into one of the free stalls. I had just wrecked my third car, crunched the nose on a parking meter.

-Why wash a car you just crashed?

-Exactly. You should have seen the strange looks I got. Everyone thought I was trying to cover up a crime. It felt great.

I clap him on the back, enjoying the way he protects his new tattoo.

-Let’s get out of here. All I got left is dollars. I think I’m gonna need more quarters.

-There’s a machine at the post office. You could try that.

I worry about the car I left at the grocery store again. I can’t keep this car forever. Unless I crack the windshield and drive through a shitload of bugs, no one would ever believe it. Maybe I should find the rest of my cars before I go back. One down, the rest will get easier as they go. Then I remember that I’m supposed to work today. How can I go to work when I’ve got quarters and cars to find? I had a similar problem back in High School. Except then the question was, how can I go to school and never know where this road ends up.

I worry that I should have left the windows cracked open in my car. A dog can die in there after only ten minutes in the sun. A praying mantis will last about a day. A baseball cap full of clams about ten hours, only six minutes in milk where their fortunes get too soggy to read. Snails? They last forever.

::: david - 12:10 AM [+] :::
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